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<title>snapshots of a reformed villain by kirin (shitchit)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23688139">snapshots of a reformed villain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitchit/pseuds/kirin'>kirin (shitchit)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>writing dump [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Enemies to Friends to Lovers, POV Second Person, badly writted purple prose and introspection if that's your thing, or at least inspired by it, vaguely megamind-ish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:07:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>827</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23688139</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitchit/pseuds/kirin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You are the villain. </p>
<p>You have been since day one, you suppose.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Male Character(s)/ Original Non-Binary Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>writing dump [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705867</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>snapshots of a reformed villain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You are the villain. </p>
<p>You have been since day one, you suppose. It wasn’t even really a choice, there wasn’t a moment where it all snapped into place, just small little acts in your everyday life. Things like eating the last cookie, biting the schoolyard bully, and attempting to jump off the roof to see if you could fly. Plus, if you weren’t the villain, who would be? It’s not like it’s a job that people volunteer for. </p>
<p>It starts like this: you are ten years old and you care too much. There’s no metaphorical hand at the back of your head, no steady pressure slowly squeezing around your lungs from the pressures of society. You think that life isn’t a game exactly, but something close. It’s a game that you don’t play to win, one with unstable odds and a feeling at the end like you just got swindled. That feeling still lingers with you. You aren’t the villain yet, not in the ways that really matter. There are still moments where you play in the rain, free of all thoughts and glowing with joy and childish glee. However, all the good times you remember do in fact come with the bad ones. Going to sleep with fingers aching and cured around the echo of a pencil and hunger pains curling in your stomach. You were ten when you figured out that you weren’t happy, and you still aren’t now. </p>
<p>Here’s a fact: with every villain comes a hero. What was that quote? Without a villain a hero is useless? Something like that. Anyway, it proves to be true. He is useless without you, and without him, you win. In your memories, he’s always been the hero. Reality tells a slightly different tale, as always, but you’ve always picked the blue pill and you don’t think that you’ll stop now. You like to think that he thinks that he makes a difference because the opposite makes you kind of want to punch a wall. </p>
<p>Right now, however, you think that you don’t want to be the villain anymore. There’s a sort of irony to it. They all told you that that was all you were and would ever be from day one. And you weren’t. You were the villain because you had to. No one else offered frankly, and it was always written in stone that you were going to end up the villain. Just like he was always destined to be the hero. It was fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it. In the end, though, you were just a child and so was he. You think it’s time to take the red pill.</p>
<p>It ends like this: you stop being the villain. You drop off the map and buy a small apartment in a rough part of town that you blend into easily. There’s a bookshop down the street, and you get a job there. Your favorite part is taking care of the bookshop cat, Arnold. You buy flowers and stick them on your window ledge. You stand in the rain, face turned towards the clouds and tears mingling with raindrops pouring down your face, and decide to dance.</p>
<p> One day, you go to the café a block over. It’s a kitschy sort of place, with knick-knacks on the bookshelves and fairy lights strung up on the walls. You order a peppermint hot cocoa with extra whip, and when the barista calls out your name, you meet his eyes and go still. You remember his eyes from the last time you saw him. Frantic and desperate. They don’t look like that anymore. His eyes break contact with yours and he scribbles something extra on your cup before disappearing into the back. </p>
<p>“My shift is over in five minutes.”</p>
<p>You wait. </p>
<p>He appears shortly after, flour and coffee stains decorating the apron and the baggy sweater he had underneath. It’s a good look for him you think in the back of your mind, and immediately you flush a little. He talks. It’s mostly small talk and awkward questions about your life, but it’s something? You’re not really sure what’s going on right now. He stops for a second, seems to gather himself, and surprises you so badly you burn yourself on your drink. He apologizes. It’s genuine and remorseful and you think that you are going to cry.</p>
<p>You end up crying, which is embarrassing, except for the fact that he starts crying not long afterward, and then uit’s just an entire mess. You leave with red-rimmed eyes and a smudgy phone number scrawled on your arm. You have a standing coffee date on Sundays with him from then on. One day you drag him out into the rain and watch his eyelashes catch raindrops as he looks up at you baffled. You snicker, and just when you thought that you had figured him out, he kisses you. </p>
<p> You think you are finally happy.</p>
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